Honda Mean Mower is officially the fastest lawnmower in the world

Cutting the lawn can be a tedious chore, so no-one wants to be doing it for longer than they must. The bods at Honda obviously feel the same way. The Honda Mean Mower has broken a Guinness World Record to become the world's fastest lawnmower.

The mower was put through its paces at the IDIADA Proving Ground, in Tarragona, Spain. It was driven by was Piers Ward of the BBC's Top Gear Magazine. Ward was required to perform two runs within an hour along a 100 m (328 ft) speed trap in both directions, with an average speed taken across both runs.

Ward set an average speed of 187.60 kph (116.57 mph), shy of the mower's cited top speed of 209 kph (130 mph) that was reported by Gizmag last year. His speed broke the previous record of 140 kph (87 mph), which Ward had also set using the Mean Mower. In addition to achieving a fastest average speed, a mower vying for the title has to be able to cut grass and, crucially, must also look like a lawnmower. Both of these criteria were also deemed to have been met.

The Mean Mower is based on a Honda HF2620 Lawn Tractor and was designed and built in the UK by Honda's British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) partner, Team Dynamics. A new 4130 chromoly (high carbon steel) chassis was added to provide a strong, but light, platform and the machine was powered by a 1,000-cc engine from a Honda VTR Firestorm. Bespoke suspension and wheels from an ATV were used in order to provide grip and keep the mower stable.

In order to keep weight to a minimum, the cutter deck was custom-made from fiberglass and the grass bag was used to contain the fuel tank, a high capacity oil cooler and a secondary water cooling radiator. It featured a custom-made Cobra sports seat, a Scorpion exhaust system and a steering rack taken from a Morris Minor, as well as a custom-made paddle shift six-speed gear system that was apparently included on the advice of British Touring Car champions Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden.

"The original brief for Mean Mower was to create the world’s fastest lawnmower – and now it officially is, by some distance!" says Kate Saxton, Honda Motor Europe's manager for European PR communications. "We are all delighted to hold a Guinness World Records title and we’d like to thank everyone who was involved in what has been a challenging yet incredibly exciting project."

Stu is a tech writer based in Liverpool, UK. He has previously worked on global digital estate management at Amaze and headed up digital strategy for FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology). He likes cups of tea, bacon sandwiches and RSS feeds. All articles by Stu Robarts

The old record seemed kind of low. Some dude my brother knew totaled a Katana on his first day on it so my bro bought the wrecked bike and mounted the engine in a Yamaha Raptor frame. It wouldn't cut grass but it would keep up with this and its not like he was trying to break records or had a budget more than about $2k to build it.

That's a 4 wheeler and not a lawn mower but with as long as people have been doing lawn mower races I can't believe nobody broke double digits before now. My stock 700 Raptor was pretty close to the old record of ~87 and its not set up or geared for top end.

Daishi 2nd April, 2014 @ 10:59 am PDT

Many moons ago I saw a programme on U.K. TV which had an item where they investigated a hole in the wall of a house in London from which a stream of bubbles would frequently appear. They tracked it down to a young man who had built an apparatus driven by an electric motor fed from a timer. This motor rotated a loop of wire into a bath of soapy liquid and then took it up in front of a fan, which blew the bubbles out into the street.

When interviewed, the young man said that he had just spent three years getting an engineering degree and wanted to do something completely useless. He closed by saying that he thought he had achieved his goal.

I wonder if the leader of this project had also just completed an engineering degree and felt moved in a similar manner. If so, they too have achieved their goal.

Mel Tisdale 3rd April, 2014 @ 04:22 am PDT

No demonstration of the mower deck? Does it even have blades? If not, this is total BS! If it doesn't mow your lawn its NOT a lawn mower. Just because it resembles a lawn mower doesn't make it a lawn mower! It is an ugly go-cart, and a slow one at that..... This is an embarrassment to Guinness.

Chaz 3rd April, 2014 @ 08:58 am PDT

So some mob in the UK builds a one-off mowing hot rod out of aftermarket parts and calls it a Honda. Pretty suss if you ask me. I guess someone is now going to have to put a GSXR engine in one and up the ante.

Certainly more of a publicity promo for them and Top Gear than anything serious.

Martin Hone 3rd April, 2014 @ 01:59 pm PDT

I could drag a finishing mower deck on the back of a Corvette and beat that, so what's the point? What exactly is the point of a criteria that it look like a lawnmower? Given the number of real lawnmower designs with the only similarity being that they only share a mower deck this pretty much leaves the field wide open. Maybe I would just need to attach a string trimmer and have the worlds fastest trimmer. I might have been impressed when I was 12.

Bob 3rd April, 2014 @ 03:15 pm PDT

Imagine the fallout when as will surely happen someone builds a blown-BB "lawn-mower, and the guy crashes and dies.

Steve Raznick 3rd April, 2014 @ 05:09 pm PDT

At least Honda has the initiative and the sense of humour to do this-

Corporate amerika is too scared of the lawyers

to even THINK of doing things like this anymore!

GO HONDA!

Griffin 4th April, 2014 @ 12:08 pm PDT

"It featured a custom-made Cobra sports seat, a Scorpion exhaust system and a steering rack taken from a Morris Minor,"

You have to be kidding. A custom cromaloy frame and bells and whistles, and a steering rack taken from a Morris Minor,